1. Technical Field
The present disclosure, inter alia, relates to continuous wound composite truss structures and methods of manufacturing the same. Lightweight, efficient structures built using the continuous wound composite structures of the present disclosure can be applied to any industry, application, component, or device where structural efficiency and low manufacturing cost are of concern.
2. Description of Related Art
Structural components which are created by winding composite materials are known in the prior art. Prior art typically uses unidirectional composite tow or pre-impregnated tape of either thermoset or thermoplastic matrix chemistry and builds up a solid structure by making many passes over a mandrel. The thickness of the finished part is built up over many passes, with each winding covering only a small portion of the finished structure, as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,202,560, 2,843,153, and 3,970,495.
The use of truss structures to increase structural efficiency is also known in the prior art. Many patents have been awarded for construction details and manufacturing methods for truss structures. U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,390,180, 3,969,869, 4,317,316, 5,457,927, and 6,026,626 all cover the details of the design and construction of various truss structures. A common approach in these patents is the use of many discrete members which are joined together to form the truss.
A filament-wound composite truss structure has been disclosed in U.S. Patent Application No. 2005/0115186, with the details of its construction being covered in U.S. Pat. No. 7,132,027. This technology creates truss structures from composite materials through a braiding process. A key feature of the structure shown in Application No. 2005/0115186 is the use of non-traditional truss geometries with cross sections made of multiple closed polygons rotated relative to each other.
The process disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,132,027 is significantly complex. The basic assembly motion in U.S. Pat. No. 7,132,027 is similar to that of a braiding machine, such as the one disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,096,781 and 6,598,510, where all of the helically wrapped elements are created at once via a braiding motion of the different filaments.